Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:23:38 GMT
New Delhi - More than 210 children have died and many others are battling for survival in an outbreak of encephalitis in India's northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, officials and news reports said Monday.
Doctors at the Baba Raghav Das Hospital in Uttar Pradesh's eastern district of Gorakhpur, the epicentre of the outbreak, said nearly 900 children had been admitted since January. "One hundred seventy-four children have died due to the virus this year since January and 111 are still admitted, many of whom are in a serious condition," Dr KP Kushwaha said in a telephone interview.
Encephalitis is a brain inflammation, mostly caused by a viral infection. The risk of the disease increases during and after the rainy season, which last roughly from June to October. Neighbouring Bihar state was on high alert to check the spread of the disease after 39 children have died of encephalitis since late July, the IANS news agency reported.
The deaths occurred at the main government hospital in the state capital, Patna, while many other children were in various hospitals for treatment. All the dead were younger than 10 and from poor families. The children reported sudden, light fevers in the early morning, which was followed by bouts of unconsciousness and convulsions, leading to their deaths.
"Until 2005, the region was suffering due to Japanese encephalitis, a mosquito-borne disease, which was eradicated to some extent," health official LP Rawat told the IANS. "But now it is enteroviral encephalitis, which is water-borne." The Gorakhpur district and the surrounding region are witnessing the worst outbreak of the disease since 2005. Extensive immunization against Japanese encephalitis was carried out in the region after an outbreak killed more than 1,000 people that year, most of them children. Last year, 151 children died from encephalitis in the Gorakhpur hospital.
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